On Saturday, Bill Rusher, a friend, a mentor, and a founding father of the conservative movement, died.

In fact, Bill was the last of a relatively small group of conservatives whose intellect, energy, work, sacrifices, and passion for freedom came together in the 1940s and 1950s to launch, build, and nurture a cause that, in the 1940s, did not even have a name.

Most conservatives today would not know of even a third of these men. But without them, there would have been no conservative movement in the 1960s, certainly no Goldwater presidential campaign, and probably no Governor or President Ronald Reagan.

A new poll reported in an unlikely source shows a broad majority of Tea Party members and roughly half of all Republicans support impeaching Barack Obama. More than 1,000 registered voters were asked, “Would you support or oppose the impeachment of President Obama?” Among those who describe themselves as Tea Party members, a full 60 percent support impeachment. An additional 16 percent are unsure.

Among Republicans, 48 percent support impeachment and 22 percent are unsure.

In the space of a few days, Democrats in Wisconsin and Indiana fled their state capitals rather than allow the democratic process to work.

Now, President Obama is declaring a federal law unconstitutional rather than respect the fact that the democratic process has already worked.

The Constitution is not silent on President Obama’s actions. Article II, Section I spells out the presidential oath of office:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Barack H. Obama took that oath — twice — on January 20, 2009. Article II, Section III is clear on the president’s relationship to US law.

[The president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed

There’s nothing in there about the president faithfully executing only the laws with which he agrees. It says nothing about the president or his attorney general being vested with the power of judicial review. That power belongs to the courts.

This president and his party have gone over the cliff into lawlessness. At this point, I wouldn’t put impeachment off the table for discussion. The president is intentionally stoking a constitutional crisis, while his party fosters anarchy in the states. These acts cannot stand.

The redistricting process for congressional and state-legislative seats will soon begin in earnest. All redistricting plans must meet the “one person, one vote” equal-protection standard established by the Supreme Court, which means that districts are supposed to be as even in population as possible.

But redistricting also must comply with the Voting Rights Act, and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division just released its new “Guidance Concerning Redistricting Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.” This guidance, which affects redistricting in all or parts of 16 states, is almost guaranteed to cause problems for Republicans.

When the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, Section 5 was supposed to be a temporary, emergency provision. It prohibits certain jurisdictions from implementing any change in their voting laws unless those changes are pre-cleared by the Justice Department or approved by a three-judge panel in federal court in Washington. This 45-year-old “emergency” provision has been renewed four separate times, most recently in 2006. That renewal gave the section 25 years of new life, despite a complete lack of evidence that the type of systematic discrimination that led to its initial passage still exists. Indeed, Congress even changed the Section 5 legal standardto make it easier for the Justice Department to cause mischief.

And as we see in the new guidance memo, DOJ seems intent on doing just that. Jurisdictions covered under Section 5 — all of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, and parts of California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and South Dakota — now have the burden of proving that their redistricting plans were adopted “free of any discriminatory purpose” and will not have any “discriminatory effect.”

Historically in U.S. jurisprudence, the government has the burden of proving guilt. But Section 5 has always had a different requirement…

How will this play out in the real world? Here’s my prediction. Democratic-drawn redistricting plans will nearly always be rubber stamped by this Justice Department, unless local black or Hispanic Democrats don’t like how their white Democratic colleagues have sliced the pie. Republican-drawn plans, meanwhile, will run into a buzz saw of Voting Section opposition based not on the legal standards set forth under Section 5, but on whether the Section’s lawyers think the plan will hurt or help Democratic candidates. As the Fort WorthStar-Telegramreports, “Democrats are looking toward the Justice Department in President Barack Obama’s administration to serve as a counterweight” to Republican control of the redistricting process in Texas. Doubt this will happen? Just look at how Justice blocked Kinston, N.C., from switching from partisan to nonpartisan city-council elections. Justice’s rationale? Minorities wouldn’t know whom to vote for if candidates’ Democratic-party affiliation didn’t appear next to their names on the ballot…

The guidance says that if a state submits a plan that’s not (in the opinion of Justice lawyers) as good as the plan concocted internally at Justice, then “the Attorney General will interpose an objection.” In other words, the Justice Department will use its law-enforcement power under the Voting Rights Act to force states to implement the redistricting plans drawn up by the Obama administration, despite the fact that nothing in the law allows them to do this…

The bottom line is this: The Holder Justice Department’s opposition to race-neutral enforcement of the law over the last two years suggests that redistricting may touch off contentious court battles over the rule of law. Unless states opt to bypass DOJ and go straight to federal court, the Left’s effort to exploit the Voting Rights Act for crass political purposes may reach a degree of success once thought unimaginable.

The American Conservative Union (ACU) and the granddaddy of all conservative conferences, CPAC, are endangered. Many of the traditional sponsors that supported the conference through thick and thin years have abandoned ship.

The issue over which the Media Research Center, Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council, and others have left the room is CPAC’s insistence that GOPProud, an organization of homosexual self-proclaimed conservatives, be given a booth inside the conference. For many conservatives, including us, this recognition of GOProud signifies an acceptance of the open promotion of the gay lifestyle inside the tent of conservatism. As a director of ACU, Floyd is acutely aware of the power struggles this controversy has unleashed inside the organization’s boardroom.

Donald Devine, in an excellent essay available on the ACU website under the title, “Why We are Conservative,” lays out the framework of ideas that built ACU and the modern conservative movement. Devine, a professor of political science, former Reagan administration official, and longtime director of ACU harkens back to the editorial debates at a small publication named National Review in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Devine writes, “Before the 1950s, there were no conservatives. There were traditionalists and libertarians who opposed the dominant welfare state liberal ideology, and there were Republicans who were ‘do it slower-than-the Democrats,’ moderates. But there were no conservatives in the modern sense. Modern conservatism was invented at National Review magazine in the mid-fifties, primarily by editors, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Frank Meyer.”

And then Devine shares the brilliant nugget of compromise that launched the movement and helped it rise to prominence….